About D. Drollinger

I was born on July 23, 1952 at Bingham Memorial Hospital in Blackfoot, Idaho. My parents are Merrill Roe Drollinger and Martha Edna Lee Higgins Drollinger. My older half-siblings are Merrill Richard Drollinger, David Roe Drollinger, and Arla Genevieve Drollinger Tolman. My full siblings are Paul Frederick Drollinger and Eugene Phillip Drollinger. I attended Irving Elementary, Blackfoot Junior High, and Blackfoot High School, Clinton High School, MI, and Frankfurt American High School, Frankfurt, Germany, where I attained my diploma. In 1988, after 10 years of part-time study I received an AAS degree in Fire Science from Yavapai College in Prescott, Arizona.

I joined the US Army in September 1971, and remained on active duty until March 1978, when I joined the Arizona Army National Guard, and served until I retired from military service in 1991. I was first stationed at Fort Lewis, WA, followed by Fort Leonard Wood, MO and Fort Belvoir, VA for training. My first permanent duty staion was with 58th Combat Engineer Company, assigned to the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment in Fulda, (then) West Germany, where I spent 4 years. The border lookout station of the 1st Squadron of the 11th ACR, the one we supported, known as Point Alpha, was made into a museum commemorating the Cold War Era; so we would not forget. My second and final duty station was with A Company, 7th Engineer Battalion, 5th Infantry Division, Fort Polk, LA. It was there I was promoted to Staff Sergeant (SSg), before my enlistment expired.

I met my wife, and the mother of my children in Germany, where we were married at the Fulda Stadtschloss on November 7, 1975. Her name is Karin Bau Hill Drollinger, we divorced 31 years later. Our children are Kim Michelle Drollinger Walter, who was born Kim Hill, the daughter of William Hill of Massachusetts, and Karin Bau Hill, in Frankfurt, Germany and later adopted by me; and Steven Martin Drollinger, born at Ft. Polk Army Hospital, LA.

After my enlistment, I worked for Ironite Products, Humboldt, AZ as a delivery driver; then for Busby Construction, Prescott, AZ as a carpenters helper. That was followed by 3 years at Whipple Veterans Administration Medical Center, Prescott, AZ; half in sterile supplies, and the other half in the warehouse. During most of this same time I served as a volunteer firefighter for Central Yavapai Fire District, and continued to do so for several years after I began my professional Fire Service career. My first full-time job as a firefighter was with Navajo Army Depot, Bellemont, AZ, and we moved to Williams, AZ as a result of that job. I worked for the AZ Department of Corrections, Vinnell-Brown and Root at Pirinclik Air Base (in Diyarbakir, Turkey). For a year I worked as a bus driver and tour guide for Canyon Airport Shuttle Services, at the Grand Canyon, then for the City of Yuma, AZ Fire Department, Northwest Fire/Rescue District (Tucson, AZ), and Rural/Metro Corporation Fire Department, where I retired on my 55th birthday in 2007, due to the progression of an hereditary disease.

My family, the Drollinger side, has a relatively weak strain of Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT), a neurological problem characterized by peripheral neuropathy, which is numbing, pain, itching and motor nerve dysfunction, that progresses as we age. Although some other families afflicted with CMT are eventually confined to a wheelchair, my family never has been. I was the first in my family to be diagnosed, and that diagnosis after the death of my parent's generation. My father died only knowing that his feet hurt, but future generations can get a clue here. Treatment of symptoms is improving all the time.

'Family History'

My father's side of my family, on every branch traces their roots through the founding of the Mormon Church. Consequently there are dozens of Mormon Pioneers in the family, and some stories of courage and tragedy; abysmal child mortality and yet several centenarians. At least two branches trace back to English royalty, including direct lines of the Kings and Queens. One of those branches merges with royalty from nearly every country in Europe and Western Asia, which of course will happen if Emperor Charlemagne is in there; and he is.

Direct ancestors include people of note such as; Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, Mark Anthony and Cleopatra, and her ancestors the Ptolemy's of Egypt, King Herod and rulers of the Assyrian, Persian and Ottoman Empires. Uther and Arthur Pendragon are 35th great grandfather and great uncle respectively. The House of Plantagenet produced many historical figures on the thrones of Europe, including Henry VIII. One royal ancestor was known as King of the Druids. More recently are Mayflower passengers, including a signor of the Mayflower Compact, my 10th g-grandfather, Elder William Brewster, whose son-in-law was Governor of Plymouth Colony, and my 9th g-grandfather. An uncle, Adam Trollinger is recorded as having had an altercation with General Cornwallis in 1776, inspiring his son Jacob Trolinger to provide gun powder to the Colonial Army. Jacob is listed with the Daughters of the American Revolution as a Patriot. All but two US Presidents are my cousins, though none closer than 17 places. Tyler and Buchanan are the exceptions, and yet I am related more closely to Muhammad Ali, Queen Elizabeth II, Jimi Hendrix, Tom Mix and Ashley Judd (but not Naomi or Wynona).

My mother's family on the other hand is lost in history, but essentially the reason I started this tree. We know so little... can barely trace them back to Europe, where they left far more recently than Dad's kin. But there are some stories to tell even in that short span. My grandmother's next younger sister lived to be 108, and at 100 and something moved herself two blocks with the use of a borrowed shopping cart, then went to visit her son in a nursing home; their younger half-brother was a horse thief, actor in silent movies and snake-oil drummer; their Grandmother was a medical doctor in Jamaica, and attended school with Queen Victoria. Great-grandma Higgins claimed to be Robert E. Lee's niece, and probably was... just maybe not the famous Robert E. Lee. Her son, my grandfather is said to have robbed stagecoaches, and once won a bet by beating a race horse in a sprint. As a Wyoming cowhand he once worked for The Virginian, made famous in fiction, by Owen Wister; and my tall-tale (partly true) version of his only attempt to drive a car led to the discovery of the cattle-guard. I never did get the story straight, but he had something to do with the famous bounty hunter, Tom Horn, as well.

All of this cannot be documented yet, but I am working on it. Some is documented in geni.